Written question asked by Lord Marlesford (Conservative), in the House of Lords. It was answered by Baroness Scotland of Asthal (Labour) on Tuesday, 22 May 2007.

Passports

Question: How many forged or altered British passports have been detected in each of the past three years.

Answer: As part of the lost, stolen and recovered procedures introduced on 8 December 2003, the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) records those passports sent back to IPS as recovered, including those lost and found with no signs of tampering. From the total passports recorded by IPS as recovered in 2004 to 2006, the following were found to have been tampered with: 2004—802 2005—1,041 2006—1,384 From records held by IPS regional fraud teams, 222 and 304 passports were also identified as forged/counterfeit in 2005 and 2006 respectively. No comprehensive figures for the fraud teams are available prior to 2005.

Secondary information